MANAUS
World Cup preview
Daily Mirror
BRAZILLIANT
The taxi driver started knocking out a samba rhythm on the dashboard as we weaved across the lanes of the highway. He then started singing.
“That Englishman who’s complaining it’ll be hot,” he crooned as we passed the shiny new stadium where England will play in the World Cup, “doesn’t know in the arena there’ll be fried fish, prawns and booze. Boo-ooze. Boo-ooze.”
It was surreal. Up until that point he’d hardly said a word. But when I mentioned I was English, it was the green light for him to start gushing.
The fiercely proud citizens of Manaus had been incensed by England manager Roy Hodgson’s view that the city, way up in the Brazilian Amazon, was the last place he wanted to play due to the heat and humidity.
RIO DE JANEIRO
Lapa and the Night
Daily Mirror
RIO'S GRAND
The sounds of samba boomed into the thick night air from the many bars and terraces. I wandered through the crowds in what hours earlier had seemed a quiet neighbourhood.
Now the chipped-stone pavements were inundated with humanity young and old, all shades from white to black.
Guys in polo shirts and pork pie hats knocked back small beers, large shots, and the crushed ice and lime of caipirinhas, Brazil’s national cocktail. There were masses of girls in skimpy dresses, alternative locals, middle class night-trippers, foreign tourists, drunken bums and hustlers.
Beneath the palm trees were roaming vendors, street musicians, food stands, yellow patrols of taxis, buses roaring by, parked-up police trying to keep track.
This was the historic neighbourhood of Lapa. It was the spirit of Rio de Janeiro encapsulated.